Mixed Marriages

Marriage is hard.. or so I hear. It is the attempted union of families, paradigms, lives, people, hearts, pasts, and so much more. This seams an impossible feat to pull off...
Failure is guaranted when you add to this equation the element of different cultures and different religions.... or that is how it seems it should be.
I cannot really see any mixed marriages that work. I only see people suffering from the pressures thrown on them by the differences. I only see people struggling so hard to try to meet in the middle. I only see people questioning whether love is in fact all it takes.
One of the few lasting mixed marriages I knew of is coming to an end. It is coming to a bitter end full of resentment and hatred stemming from the bottling up of emotions for years. Negative emotions felt because of how different the people were. Now it is a broken family full of confusion, pain, and hatred.
I have little hope for myself because being a product of a mixed marriage means that any marriage I attempt will in fact be a mixed marriage.
I have lived a unique life... and I think that I will never find someone who is similiar to myself. I do not think that I am willing to fight the fight required to make any marriage work.
I do not see it as being worth it anymore.
I only see the confusion and the pain....

An Egyptian shortcut...

Yesterday as I was leaving work I got a traffic report from a friend's driver. He said the road was hideous and that it took him an hour and a half to get to the school...
He said that the side going back was much worse!
So, we all decide to take a different route home. We called it a shortcut!
This "shortcut" was 30 km out of our way!
Sadly, this really was a shortcut and we got home faster than we normally do....

Only in Egypt does driving 30 km out of your way still define a shortcut!

Typically Egypt..

Yes, it is normal to see 2 pharohs on the back of a pickup!!!

:o)

This is another reason why I love driving in this country!

Traffic Deux...

Yesterday I make my daily drive from Heliopolis to Zamalek.
I have my ipod playing. I am singing along at the top of my lungs.
I am happy.
I am enjoying driving....

I drive up the on ramp to the 6th of October bridge... and I am blinded by the sea of red lights.
It felt like all 80 million Egyptians were on the bridge at the same moment...
The cars were not moving...

I curse.. I curse again at the top of my lungs....

And then I do what any Egyptian would do....

I reverse down the on ramp of the bridge. I back up all the way down the ramp and back onto Salah Salem Street.

I am in shock that I did that.

I am proud that I did that....

Today, I consider myself a true Egyptian driver!!!

Traffic...

Traffic is Egypt is one of the main evils that ruin my life.

It bothers me mainly because I do not understand it.

Egyptians are excellent drivers.... until there are choices.
Until there are intersections or exits or whatever.

These options fuck traffic up.
These options confuse people.
These options can hold the country at a stand still...

I have decided that when I am that important person who is in charge of organizing the traffic in this country I will rid us of lanes. I will not paint white lines on the streets. I will have cement fucking lane dividers!
I think that if the whole country were forced to drive in straight lines life would be great!!!

No options means no traffic!

Egypt this year is better than last year...

Egypt has been the last thing on my mind lately. I have not been analyzing why things are like that like I would last year.
This year I feel like I couldn't care less. I think I just ahve a lot on my mind lately.
I also think that this year things are better than last year. I am not being harrassed as much as last year. Cars rarely follow me to my building anymore. People don't touch me in the streets anymore.
I do not know why things have changed, but I am grateful. I have a lot to deal with and I really don't think I could handle that on top of everything else.

I am still a teacher. I enjoy it. The school I am at this year is so much better than the one I was at last year. The parents of most of the kids are a lot better than last year. It is a refreshing thought to know that there are some good parents out there.
I still have a student whose parents seem to not care. She is so neglected it makes me want to cry. I guess the world over has parents who don't care. I guess that only one kid is better than the whole class like last year. I guess that I will always be hurt when I meet kids I feel are neglected. I guess I will always care.

Flying Egypt Air

A while back I promised an ex of mine that when something positive happened in Egypt I would write about it here. So, today I am finally able to honor that promise. Finally, something good happened!

I flew back from New York a few days ago. I was dreading the flight because I just had back surgery and also because every interaction I had with Egypt Air customer service led me to one conclusion; Egypt Air has a strict "idoits only" hiring criteria. I had horrible imagies of what the flight will be like.
So, very uneagerly I arrive at JFK. I get in line to check in. This line is long. The longest line I have ever been in at an airport. I am in line for about 2 hours. Of course when I get to the counter he wants to charge me a penalty for changing my ticket. (Note: Egypt Air already over charged me for changing my ticket). It takes a while but I convince them I paid and they hand over the boarding pass without recharging me.
I spend about another hour in lines to pass the security checks.
So, by now I have been in lines for 3 hours. I was in a car for 2 hours before that and I did not sleep well the night before.
By the time I get on the plane I am dying. The pain was horrible.
One of the flight attendants asked me what was wrong. When i told him my story he told em to ask him if I need anything. He walked away. ABout 20 minutes later he comes back and asks me to move to the middle of the plane because he has rearranged some passengers to give me 4 free chairs so that I can lay down instead of sitting for the 12 hours.
I was grateful, touched, and impressed.
This man decided to help me even though I did not ask him. He was very caring and compassionate.
I do not think I would have been able to handle the flight had he not done so.
The passengers around me were also very kind and helpful. Everyone kept asking me if I needed anything. Everyone was so willing to try to make my life a little easier.
I was really surprised and touched by everything that they did.

So, I said before that I will not fly Egypt Air again.. but I think I changed my mind.

The flight attendants and the passengers definitely made my flight perfect...

Thank you